Found a chunk of metal after oil change on my M923A1

[Spiralout]

Is there any hope, or should I start planning to part her out? It appears to be a thin piece of copper. The oil also has a copper sheen to it. I haven't had the heart to look for more metal in the drained oil.

 

[infidel got me]

That is never a good sign.

 

[6x6guy]

Unless you take the the time to take it apart ( that's if you know what your doing ) and have the right tools, and a place to lay out the engine and all its parts - examine and mic each part -start looking for a another engine.
Did the same had several M35s and extra engine, trans, transfer case etc- but never had to use them - sold all the trucks and basically sold the back up parts real cheap. Good luck on your venture.

 

[red]

Not complicated to swap out motors.

 

[Spiralout]

I sifted through the oil and found one other piece of copper, and 2 tiny pin head sized pieces of aluminum that appeared to be molten at some point and dripped down into the oil. Is that any clue as to what exactly is failing in there?

Thank you for the help.

 

[BnaditCorps]

Maybe not enough coolant? Unless you have a terribly messed up motor, but that can get expensive. ;(

 

[JohnnyBM931A2]

My guess would be that the bearings got wiped out by coolant contamination in the oil. Maybe a cylinder liner issue? You would really need to take it apart to see what happened.

And I agree with what others have said.. DON'T part it out. Either have the current engine rebuilt, or find someone parting out a truck that can sell you an engine for a reasonable price.

 

[Ue413]

I'm not an expert, but cannot think of what would be copper. Valves, liners, rings, main bearings, cam bearings, con-rod pins, bushings, thrust washers, oil pump bearings, etc, are all something way harder than copper.

Could it it be a separate component plumbed into system like an egr or oil cooler, compressor, etc?

how does she run, and are there any symptoms? Running hot, oil in coolant or coolant in oil?

 

[Spiralout]

It runs great, the temps are fine, no coolant in the oil that I could tell. When I did the coolant change there was no oil there.

 

[JohnnyBM931A2]

Hmmm.. The mystery grows. Let me ask 2 more questions then: Is this the first time you've changed the oil in the truck? I'm just wondering if this chunk has been in there a long time, or if you have previously changed the oil and it has happened since then. And second, did you scratch away at that metal with a knife or something to verify if it is copper?

You might want to send a sample of the old oil out for analysis.

 

[OilfieldRoughneck]

Copper means bearings right? There are enough guys parting out trucks you should be able to get a decent motor for cheap.

 

[red]

Brass is used commonly in bearings

 

[Spiralout]

Hmmm.. The mystery grows. Let me ask 2 more questions then: Is this the first time you've changed the oil in the truck? I'm just wondering if this chunk has been in there a long time, or if you have previously changed the oil and it has happened since then. And second, did you scratch away at that metal with a knife or something to verify if it is copper?

You might want to send a sample of the old oil out for analysis.

This is the first oil change I've done. I scraped the metal chunks and they certainly aren't copper, just smeared with copper on the outside. It's more pieces aluminum I think. The truck was rebuilt at RRAD 800 miles ago.

 

[Tracer]

Is the engine making any noises such as a rod knock? Hard to believe your finding this kind of debris in the oil and the engine isn't making some obvious noise.

 

[JohnnyBM931A2]

This is the first oil change I've done. I scraped the metal chunks and they certainly aren't copper, just smeared with copper on the outside. It's more pieces aluminum I think. The truck was rebuilt at RRAD 800 miles ago.

Hmm.. I think the pistons in these engines are aluminum. Anyone care to confirm that?

 

[Swamp Donkey]

This is the first oil change I've done. I scraped the metal chunks and they certainly aren't copper, just smeared with copper on the outside. It's more pieces aluminum I think. The truck was rebuilt at RRAD 800 miles ago.

What color is the coolant? If the coolant is all rusty and slimy then one of your liners is probably leaking. Rusty coolant in the oil would probably look copper-ish. This would explain what looks like bearing fragments in your hand. They don't like coolant.

Take some of your old oil and let it separate out in a clear glass. This will give you an idea of what is in there with the oil.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

What color is the coolant? If the coolant is all rusty and slimy then one of your liners is probably leaking.

And I'm not talkin about looking down at the coolant in the surge tank. You need to pull some coolant from the bottom radiator drain to get a accurate idea of what's in the system.

 

[74M35A2]

Go by numbers. Are any of your fluid levels increasing or decreasing over time? What is your hot idle oil pressure? WildChild467 had something almost same as this on his M35A2 engine (LDT465), and the metal pieces were a thrust washer and flyweights that came apart in the governor part of his injection pump.

If the core engine runs and sounds decent, and has at least 10psi of hot idle oil pressure, the engine itself may be ok. It may be a driven accessory like the air compressor coming apart. In the above case, he had an erratic idle, which straightened right out after he fixed it. Pay close attention to misbehavior of anything connected to the engine, that has access to dropping parts in the oil pan. Also a very small chance, but if anybody is mad at you or the previous owner, did they drop some parts into the oil fill cap? I've seen it happen.

 

[Spiralout]

This is what most of the old coolant looks like. I stirred it around to kick up any particles.

Some of it does have an orange slime on the surface, but that wasn't there after the coolant change, and it's only in the buckets that were catching the water when I flushed it out, so I suspect that's just some kind of algae.


I've got the block heater going, I'm going to start it up and get some audio of it running. A friend who is a diesel mechanic didn't mention anything out of the ordinary when he heard it, but he did say it was older than anything he had ever worked on.

As for the copper color in the oil, it looks almost like copper paint would. Very fine particles that are very reflective, so I don't think it's rust.

I appreciate all the ideas coming in, I have a feeling I'm going to know a lot more about this beast than I did yesterday.

Edit: I don't have any enemies, and I have security cameras! Sabotage wasn't a possibility I had considered though. Maybe I was too slow getting up a hill and made someone mad . Oil pressure is present at hot idle, I couldn't tell you an exact number, but definitely higher than 10 psi. I'll check the fluid levels. I didn't want to start it after finding that, so I haven't checked anything like that.

 

[Ue413]

Does it smoke excessively, significant blow-by, how is oil pressure?

if oil pressure good, how is power? If all is good, you could take compression readings on cylinders to confirm rings are good.